Heart of Darkness
by sol113
Summary: Dishonourably discharged after Torfan, Lt Shepard enters the lawless Terminus Systems. Following bloodshed and tragedy, on Omega she ends up in the employ of Aria T'Loak... Heavy AU from Skylian Blitz onwards. Femshep/Aria pairing.
1. Chapter 1

**HEART OF DARKNESS**

 **CHAPTER 1:**

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

 **'This' means someone is thinking.**

 **Italics alone means the name of something, i.e. Mass Effect core.**

 ** _'This'_ means Shepard is narrating, like in noir style movies.**

 **Horizontal ruler (a line across the page) means a page break or timeskip, it may be a few minutes, it may be a few hours...**

 **-X- means a scene change, i.e. we start with character A in a warehouse. Then we go to character B in an apartment- a scene change from a warehouse to an apartment.**

 **Disclaimer; I do not own the Mass Effect franchise or any of the characters or ideas involved. This is nonprofit-I am making no money from this.**

* * *

 **Omega, 2184 …**

 _ **'Some asari matriarch said… 'The stars shine... even on the heart of darkness…' someone needs to shoot that bitch.'** _

Through the red shimmering sky, an armored gunship flew. One of the enforcers of Aria T'Loak. The gunship scanned the boxy slums of the Utulu district (that didn't have plumbing or heating).

Crouching in a dark spot creating by broken lighting a black armoured figure glanced around at the debasement and chaos all around her;

 _ **'Omega… scarred, twisted…blinding bright and deepest dark... if that makes any fucking sense...'** _

**_'Deep within the lawless regions of the galaxy… outside the bubbles of luxury the galaxy's elite and fortunate make for themselves... are warzones… and a beating heart…'_**

In one district a group of combat drug-charged thugs fought each other, beating each other into bloody pulp with pipes and duraplast knuckledusters.

 ** _'Chaos… depravity… pumping the blood of a dozen sapient species…_** ** _mercenaries, runaways, criminals, terrorists, dissidents, the inconvenient... seven point eight million people living in a nightmare web of metal and plastic and blood. Some trying to escape the lies and false paradise of citadel space, some seeking new opportunities… or prey…_**

In the adjacent district, a food riot was taking place against the Blue Suns overseers who had cut supplies this month.

 ** _'Thrashing. Choking. Poisoning itself.'_**

The Eclipse PMC tested their new super-heavy mechs by having them slaughter newly freed slaves from the Batarian Hedgemony 'saved' via the Khar'Shan abolitionist movement.

In a lab that was once a food market a disgraced Salarian biochemical weapons specialist grinned as he cooked up a horrific chimeric blend of Palavan 'Black Mist Fever' and earths AIDs 2.

A pureblood asari maiden was burnt alive by 'Athame's light' an asari hate cult expelled from citadel space and condemned by all asari. They wore white masks of ancient asari war priestesses that glinted as they chanted at the murderous pyre they had created.

All across the station, gangs of thugs waged war, gunning each other down as an armored woman watched from the shadows.

 ** _'The black and horrid and honest counterpart of the Citadel. The heart of darkness. Where one false step gets you killed or mindraped of harvested. This. Is my home…'_**

 **-X-**

The closest thing to order on Omega was the rule of Aria T'loak, but there were always those who went against the order…

In a charred, heavily modified and fortified warehouse in the Niftu district, three incredibly dangerous sapients convened. They were part of an eight-man team hired by parties unknown (perhaps the Shadow Broker, perhaps the Asari republics) to kill Aria T'Loak. The eight were some of the finest mercenary operators in the Terminus Systems, over two thousand murders existed between the eight.

And now five of them were dead with Omega's Pirate Queen untouched.

The first of the survivors was a massive krogan named Pok. He carried a massive customized _Maw Tongue_ anti-material rifle in one gigantic arm. On his tree-like legs were two _Eviscerator_ shotguns, with a belt of grenade discs around his refrigerator-wide waist. On his back were a _Gant_ , one of the few sniper rifles krogan ever made and a _Deglaz_ rocket launcher. On his armour's chest plates were two _Yakk_ krogan pistols- hand cannons so powerful firing one even with a double grip would break most non-krogans wrists.

Pok was famous for the _Juliri_ police station massacre, and considered himself one of the few krogan with a brain, fighting using a combination of primal power and skill.

"You think we were set up?" The massive krogan rumbled playing the dumb brute, a trick that had cost many opponents their lives.

The digitally distorted response came from a salarian covered in illegally modded and customized grey armour equipped with strength-enhancing exoskeletal braces and a helmet that projected false faces via holocamo. He was a highly skilled and secretive saboteur and assassin known for discretion- until killing two C-Sec officers on the Citadel made him a galactic fugitive. He had long since renounced his family and race and was known simply as Tusin.

"No. The amount of money paid to our accounts was so high it could only have come from a very powerful and connected enemy of Aria's. Although there may have been a leak on their end-"

The third intervened; an asari named Danania T'Jono. Once a sheltered aristocrat smothered by a controlling mother, who she later discovered planned to sell her off as a trophy mate to a turian politician, Danania had fled to Illium using money stolen from her family to buy multiple ID's. After decades of clichéd maiden antics; dancing, whoring, merc jobs, before mating with a disgraced failed Spectre candidate who trained her to become a lethal assassin.

"This doesn't matter. Aria knows we're coming, probably knows where we are. Our best bet for survival is to either run or throw in with a big player like the Broker or-"

The alarms of illegally modded omni-tools blared and flashed as their owners pulled up holo windows feeding into all mech and stealth cams previously stationed around the warehouse.

The trio saw a ridiculous sight; the giant front gates of the outer property had been smashed open by a _Badger D20_ track-type tractor- a bulldozer vehicle built for construction and demolition purposes constructed from metals that made it heavier armoured than some light tanks (the crappy hover scout ones at least) and this one looked to have been modified. The beast had kinetic barriers that repelled the small arms fire Tusin's combat mechs sprayed the juggernaut with.

The stolen heavy equipment could not however handle a LAW hit- a straight on shot from a _Morningstar_ Light Anti-Armor rocket equipped missile drone blasted through the kinetic barriers and straight into the armored cockpit, turning it into blazing slag and surely killing whoever was inside.

Several battle mechs surrounded the now ablaze vehicle while several other ran to the opposite side of the building, their simplistic VI's deciding this suicidal attack was simply a feint.

 **-X-**

High above, the three hired killers watched the burning wreck with no expression showing on their faces.

Tusin spoke up first;

"No way was that the real attack. Will the attack be from below? The sewers? Above? A jetpack or Skycar perhaps? Or-"

The krogan Pok saw in the corner of his eye that Danania had gone to the covered window to get a look at the blaze with her own eyes.

 _'Stupid asari!'_

"Get away from-"

 **KRRAASSSHH!**

Through the window exploded a _Kishock_ harpoon, modded with a phasic generator in the shaft rendering the shocked asari's barriers useless. The monomolecular point pierced her commando leathers, her chest cavity and exited her back. Ramrods on the mid-point of the harpoon erupted and dug into the matron's chest cracking bones and driving the skewered asari into the opposite wall. And the hideous device wasn't finished yet. It exploded, ripping the impaled matron to meaty chunks.

Both Tusin and Pok exited the room as more harpoons fired into the room, one of the new ones erupting into black (and likely poisonous) gas.

Neither mercenary was bothered though, they had multiple exit routes and Tusin's mechs surrounding the perimeter had programs to calculate the location of snipers from the impact of their shots and were no doubt zeroing in on whoever was firing on them…

 **-X-**

Outside the mechs simplistic VI's had zeroed in on the shooter; a figure under a black tarp laying in prone position inside a crashed transport a block away.

The automatons fired, shredding the figure.

Which was a mistake as they entered a bottleneck to get a shot at the figure.

And because 'the shooter' was actually a corpse shot full of drugs to fool infrared sensors and the sniper rifle was on remote control.

 **-X-**

Tusin observed the mechs battle cams in the corner of his eye as he and Pok reached their primary escape route; a Turian _StriderClaw_ IFV.

The Salarian got behind the controls and pressed the ignition just as his mechs got close enough to the sniper to see that he wasn't holding the gun that was still firing….

He realized his mistake the instant he pressed the IFV's ignition button.

 _'Bleeding cloaca…'_

 **BOOOOMM!**

Which detonated the bomb that their attacker had attached to the vehicles Eezo core after sneaking through a hole in the perimeter defences.

Scarred, burnt and near blind, the krogan Pok crawled away from the now blazing vehicle. The alien behemoth had survived the pressure wave, heat and shrapnel, any of which alone would have killed almost any none-krogan in the galaxy.

But he was now blind in one eye, his lungs were burnt, his eardrums were ruptured, shrapnel had dug into his neck (at a depth definitely fatal to none krogan).

 _'Am I going to die here? I'm glad I had all that sex…'_

Those were the six hundred year old krogan's last thoughts as his struggles were ended by an armor piercing bullet to the head.

Stepping out of the shadows, the former Lieutenant Katsu Shepard, dressed in chaotic looking personally customized armor stared down at the rapidly cooling corpse.

"And now for the messy part of the job…"

 _ **'I know what you're thinking. Why's Shepard here alone? Where's the rest of the crew? The fancy ship? And why's her armour not have the shiny red N7 logo on it? That's because I'm not Lieutenant Commander Shepard, paragon hero of space… I'm Katsu Shepard, dishonorably discharged fuck-up of space. A traitor to humanity and enemy to civilized space…'**_

She activated her Omni-blade.

 ** _'There are no heroes in this story…'_ **

**-X-**

 **Afterlife…**

Systems Alliance top ten most wanted and galaxy renowned hitperson (hitman went out of style when it was noted how well asari did throat slitting) Katsu Shepard entered the Afterlife, exclusive entertainment for Omega's elite and base of Aria T'Loak. In her hand was a white plastic bag and she walked stroking the massive Yakk pistol she had stolen from Pok's corpse. She liked big guns. Liked looking at them. Liked touching them, feeling their weight and girth… pulling the trigger and feeling their power and hearing their different sounds…

Feeling inappropriate arousal, Shepard walked past the clubs security; scanners, hidden cameras and guards. Past the body double that served as Aria looking over Afterlife and up many storeys higher in the tower to the real Aria's private domain passing a second Aria double, Asata she believed given the pleasant hello and warm smile she briefly received from her.

 _ **'And here she is. My boss since telling the idiot politicians to fuck off. Lounging in her depraved tower fortress. Aria T'loak, galactic crime boss, bane to the citadel, personification of all evil present within the asari soul… watching a goddamned elcor attempt rap?'**_

"(Arrogant pretense) My dick cost a late night fee.  
Your dick got the HIV.  
My dick plays on the double feature screen.  
Your dick went straight to DVD."

 _'Tomorrow night's entertainment? Or maybe a **really** sadistic new form of torture?'_

"(Continued arrogance) My dick bigger than a bridge.  
Your dick look like a little kids.  
My dick large like the chargers.  
(Explanation- The whole team).  
Your shit look like you're fourteen."

"You look bored." Shepard blandly noted as Aria clicked the agonizing droning off.

Aria vaguely turned her attention to her.

"Well?" She asked curtly showing no sign of experiencing auditory torture.

"I'm handing you your head."

From the bag Shepard retrieved the severed head of Danania T'Jono, she had handed the other two to Anto, but Danania had particularly pissed Aria off for some reason.

"Did you strain yourself thinking up that joke?" Aria spoke dismissively.

"I've also got 'giving head' 'don't lose your head worrying' 'I'm working to get ahead'…"

"Humour is not one of your assets Shepard. But what a thoughtful gift to liven up a boring evening." She picked up the head and studied it not unlike a shopper considering a melon. She then pitched it across the room into a trash can.

She grabbed Shepard, pulled the armored woman in and harshly kissed her.

"You smell terrible. The shower in room F2, Be thorough."

Shepard wanted to scoff in disgust but knew better. Especially given what she knew was next.

 **END CHAPTER 1**

* * *

 **STG REPORT; OVERVIEW (See full file for in-detail information)**

Katsu Shepard.

Species; human, minor cybernetic and neurological alterations.

Born; Vancouver, Canada, Earth, Sol System.

Relatives; mother; Hannah Shepard (deceased), born Hana Nakano, former prostitute at Vancouver Inferno pleasure club (legalised brothel).

Battle classification; Soldier (N7 rating), extensive crosstraining in sniping, demolition, piloting, combat engineering, info-war, engineering, ground command.

 **Background;**

Born 2154 as the child of a prostitute working at the Inferno brothel and an as-yet unidentified System Alliance officer (see file Shepard patriarch suspects). Psychoanalysts believe Hana impregnated herself in an attempt to blackmail officer for money or political advantage.

Officer instead attempted to murder Hana. She fled country with new born daughter in tow.

Following several years unknown.

Hana Nakano, then known as Hannah Shepard was murdered in 2160, in sight of Katsu, then six years of age. Unknown if subject is aware of father's identity or his involvement in mother's death.

Subject then became homeless, fell into gang culture, heavy criminal background with multiple arrests until arrest at age 16. Due to change in human laws Shepard given choice of prison sentence or service in military (minimum of 12 years, execution if breached).

Conduct during military service exemplary until battle of Torfan.

 **Combat record;**

Childhood involved in heavy urban warfare including New York civil war (human year 2168) and extensive gang war activity (reported activity as accessory to murder at age 14, committed first degree murder age 15).

2170; Katsu Shepard enlisted to Systems Alliance (Penal corps). Graduates from Camp Orcus at top of class.

2171; Caleston riots, 57 confirmed kills, 6 with bare hands.

2171-2174;14 confirmed operations as part of Tactical Response Force Garuda under command of Admiral Tadius Ahern.

2175; Commences ICT training, graduates at rank of N7, with several records set at urban assault and survival.

2176, Skylian blitz; on Elysium as part of large-scale trap for Batarian Hegemony (see file Operation Abyss for more details). Especially of note in battle subject fought and defeated Lance of Crusher-class Battlesuits in ambush in Thompson woods. Successful urban combat against Unraveller type Batarian biotics in capital city of Illyria.

2178, Battle of Torfan (Operation Frost Sidewinder), Killed Major Wilson Kyle and assumed command of surviving SA forces. Desertion and dishonorable discharge immediately after battle.

Brief career as mercenary performing hits exclusively against extreme criminals.

2179; Incorporated into Aria T'Loaks organization, conflicting reports as to whether this process was done via coercion or Shepard's own wishes. Note; uncertain relationship between Aria and Shepard- financial investigations show Shepard receiving higher payment than other members of T'Loak's organization doing same job. Also note multiple sexual liasons between Aria and Shepard, exact nature unknown considering differences between human and Asari philosophies on sex.

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

 **Camp Orcus;** facility located in radlands- area of North America left as a radioactive wasteland after the Apocalypse War (a crisis beginning with global terrorism on an unprecedented scale, the collapse of the global economy after petroleum reserves went dry, environmental death and culminating in a nuclear exchange. Estimated death toll 2.8 billion). Purpose is to train penal corps troops (criminals rehabilitated as soldiers and used as cannon fodder). Named after the god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in Italic and Roman mythology.

 **Caleston Riots;** an attempt by workers and colonists (secretly aided by batarian SIU) to overthrow the colony and declare independence. Part of the Hegemony's 'Pillar of fracturing' plot to incite SA civil war.


	2. Black Throne

**HEART OF DARKNESS**

 **CHAPTER 2: BLACK THRONE**

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

 **Warning; This chapter contains BDSM, Femslash and torture although it has been edited to fit this site's guidelines.**

 **'This' means someone is thinking.**

 **Italics alone means the name of something, i.e. Mass Effect core.**

 **Horizontal ruler (a line across the page) means a page break or timeskip, it may be a few minutes, it may be a few hours...**

 **-X- means a scene change, i.e. we start with character A in a warehouse. Then we go to character B in an apartment- a scene change from a warehouse to an apartment.**

 **Disclaimer; I do not own the Mass Effect franchise or any of the characters or ideas involved. This is nonprofit-I am making no money from this.**

* * *

 **Afterlife, private room F2...**

It took several minutes for Shepard to get undressed. First she removed her arsenal of weapons; her visible weapons such as her _Raptor_ sniper rifle (modified for human grip and sight), her _Phaestron_ assault rifle (clearly modded for extra stopping power), her _Disciple_ shotgun (devastating when used in its original form, Shepard had made her own illegal modifications making it even more destructive). Her hands then went to her less standard weapons; a silenced _Suntetsu_ hypercompact pistol, several nanoceramic knives, a custom modified weaponised omni-tool, microbombs, fibre wire for strangulations, medi-gel and battlefield trauma kit… she wondered if she'd need that later…

After removing her battered, hand-rebuilt armour in layers; came her civilian undergarments (unfeminine briefs and a sports bra), dropped and left carelessly. Shepard stepped naked into the large walk-in shower and activated multiple waterfalls of steaming hot water.

She let out a breath of tension feeling the hot water soak into her muscles.

Even though humanity lived in an era when 'mixed-race' appearance was common, Katsu Shepard was considered exotic in appearance with the young woman attracting attention from human, asari and even drell individuals. She stood at a commanding five foot ten inches in height, a body that somehow blended appealing femininity with powerful musculature allowing feats of strength that shamed many males of her species, held up by long, strong legs attached to wide hips. The hot water of the shower rained over skin marred by dozens of scars from stab, bullet, cut and burn wounds she had endured over years of war.

Holding a flannel Shepard began scrubbing herself, her arms were muscled enough to crush human bone, and her hands were heavily calloused.

Showing contentment, her face was exotically beautiful as well; jet black hair reaching down to her shoulder blades, dark eyes, skin and facial structure that merged Caucasian and Asian traits in an almost statuesque, commanding manner.

Shepard rolled her well-developed shoulders, rubbing the hot water over her body suspecting Aria was watching her via hidden cameras.

She was.

 **-X-**

In an adjoining room, Aria thought back on her favourite employee's past; dishonourably discharged from the Systems Alliance after fleeing human space after assaulting an AIS suit who tried to divert the disaster that was Operation Frost Sidewinder (the attack on Torfan) from being the fault of AIS bad intel and Major Kyle losing control thanks to years of abusing performance-enhancing drugs to Shepard's personal incompetence on the ground.

An order to capture or kill had been given after she broke out of the stockade. Anticipating this she had left for the Terminus systems becoming a merc leader who exclusively took jobs to kill criminals especially pirates and slavers.

An idealistic soldier who went on a suicide run through the Terminus like some wannabe justicar? It happened so often in the Terminus that there were various terms for it; turians called it the _'The last charge'_ , asari called it _'The fall to darkness'_ , salarians _'The pointless end'_. Humans called it _'Punisher syndrome'_. It always ended one of two ways; the would-be crusader got in over their head and died or became corrupted by the Terminus and joined a criminal gang of one type or another and violated their ideals for survivals sake, becoming no different from the ones they once fought.

Shepard had originally attracted Aria's attention by doing better than most she could remember;

Asari commandos, AIS spooks, batarian druglords, turian hijackers, quarian cyberterrorists, elcor berserkers, organ leggers, salarian cloners, volus bioweapons dealers, more robbers, assassins, mercenaries and hired thugs than even a drell accountant could keep tally of.

All had died to Shepard's guns, blades and bombs.

Shepard had inspired others to follow her, forming a crew or gang of rag-tag oddballs including a star struck asari maiden who thought she was a hero. It ended in tragedy when a terminus warlord located their hideout and killed all except Shepard herself. Still grievously wounded, the enraged lone human woman attacked the warlords retreating convoy of IFV's in revenge and killed them all.

Though not without cost, Shepard was horribly wounded in the battle.

A broken, bloodied human woman had been found in the burning rubble strewn street by Aria's enforcers and brought to her. Omega's queen had revealed to a mangled, life support machine-connected Shepard that her spine had been shattered by a round from a hand cannon, and that she would now be a tool; an instrument of death or debasement for either Aria's or one of her lieutenants.

Or perhaps one of the Terminus elites, an alliance of depraved warlords that fought each other endlessly, except when threatened by an outside force or made to submit to a greater power. Not unlike the feudal Daimyo of the Japanese that Shepard's matrilineal line was descended from.

Aria had Shepard rebuilt and 'modified'; she smirked as she saw two such modifications on her chest. The human woman was quite angry when she woke up and found that she'd gone from a perfectly acceptable B cup to a double D, Aria had smirked it off stating that Shepard had tasks to perform besides killing.

' _Speaking of…'_ Aria got up and left the room.

 **-X-**

"I know I'm irresistible to asari, but you could have waited five more minutes for me to finish showering…" She quipped at Aria who ignored her.

"Maybe take the time to put on something special, maybe put on romantic music… set up candles…"

Aria's lips twitched at that. She strode forth, yanking Shepard behind her by her long black hair.

"Really, do you hear yourself Shepard? Like some silly little maiden about to have sex for the first time, talking grown-up when they haven't shallow melded with anyone except their mother."

Ignoring the pain in her scalp (and how much it turned her on) Shepard kept talking;

"Are you saying I'm like a virgin? I'm really not. Watch the hair."

Katsu had kept it short in the military but now her jet-black locks reached down to her shoulder blades due to Aria insisting/demanding she grow it out as a 'novelty' of humans (and she enjoyed yanking her human servants around by their hair).

The Pirate Queen dragged her still dripping wet form through Afterlife's restricted corridors to an unfamiliar room with many strange furnishings; modified chairs and benches, lockers containing various gear and instruments, holo-imagers….

…and most bizarrely of all, a large black throne dominating the center of the space.

Shepard blinked. "I didn't know you took the queen thing seriously Aria."

"But many humans do. This is to indulge **your** fantasy of a 'Royal Domination'."

The Pirate Queen sat in the throne still holding Shepard at an awkward angle by her hair.

Roughly, she bent the slightly shorter human woman over and laid her across one knee and trapping her much more muscular legs within two slender and purple ones.

The throne was some kind of metal painted black, while the seat was cushioned, the armrests were not. The seat's back extended up higher than Aria's head with the symbol of the station Omega etched into it. It looked both artistic and austere.

On the walls there were tools and devices inside the frame that Shepard was painfully aware of, perhaps they'd be used tonight. Aria hadn't decided yet.

Shepard's stared down into the reflective Thessian warpfire forged obsidian, seeing her red face staring back at her, feeling a tinge of disgust at her aroused features. Aria's knee dug into her abs with her other long leg scissoring over her thighs.

She knew why her ass was exposed like this…

"You know in my 'domination fantasies' you were dressed like a JRPG character; knee-high, spike heeled, leather boots, briefs…"

The former N7 twitched as she felt warm, lightly scaled fingers ghost up and down her large buttocks and seemingly begin massaging her.

"…more of a thong really. A corset… a weird feather cape thing-"

Heat and moisture erupted from her sexual regions, racing through her body. Part due to Aria's skilled hands, part because of the minor nerve alterations Aria's doctors from her prostitution facilities had done; Katsu became more aroused than usual due to several triggers.

 **SMACK!**

Like violent physical contact.

Aria's cruel mouth smirked as she looked down at Shepard's upturned ass (far fuller than any asari's- more to play with she inwardly gloated) as she played with the globes of meat; squeezing and tugging.

" **Do** you have any capes? Or crowns? Maybe a ti-aaahh!"

Shepard's eyes widened in shock, her body tensed as her user/mistress/boss pulled her ass cheeks apart. Without warning or consideration the Pirate Queen drove a finger forwards into the place only custom inspectors dared probe, twisting the scaled digit around as she cruelly, callously opened her up.

Calloused palms clenched onto the near mirror-like floor, the corners of her mouth twitching in what might be a smile as highly sensitive (and _really_ not often touched) nerves were brushed by Aria's finger.

"And humans say turians are tight assed." She sneered as her minion/tool twitched and squirmed in her grasp.

"They are… humans are… badass… smart ass… great ass…"

Ignoring her lame one-liners, Aria created a wave of highly controlled dark energy. She used it to will an object to her hands from across the room. Seeing the blue flashing from the corner of her eye Shepard looked up into a polished silver, almost egg-shaped device and identified the tool her mistress now had.

"An asari crown jewel?" She asked nonchalant.

 _'This is gonna hurt...'_

Shepard grit her teeth, gasped and tried to relax her muscles as the freezing cold metal was recklessly pushed into her body.

 _'Ah! Cold! Cold! Cold! Big!'_

"You know… you're so much gentler… than the last person who put something up there." Katsu gasped out quite crosseyed.

If Aria cared that her property had been 'utilised' by someone before she took possession she didn't show it. Just kept pushing the device into Shepard as far as it could go. Stealthily admiring her twitching bubble-butt.

Shepard gasped- nearly screamed when the Pirate Queen callously turned the device on.

Aria smirked down at her sometimes assassin, sometimes sex slave as her lower body spasmed and her hands turned white in grip.

 **SMACK!**

Aria had just flicked Shepard's butt with a single finger. Thanks to the asari's mastery of biotics she could increase the weight of her finger many times over a millisecond before the digit struck, using this technique asari commandoes could take a mere kick, add hundreds of pounds to it and knock a man through a wall causing injuries similar to being struck by a skycar.

Aria was using this millennia old secret of asari biotic mastery as a substitute for spanking.

 **SMACK!**

Shepard jerked as Aria once again flicked her ass hard, the crushing kinetic force from the finger stabbed deep enough into Shepard's buttocks to severely bruise muscles.

"I gave you a compliment. Respond."

 _'Bitch!'_ "Guh… thank you, your heavenly Omeganess." She bit out sarcastically.

The finger struck out again.

 **SMACK!**

"You sound insincere. Try again."

"I am… appalled you think I would ever be insincere to you… a paragon all look up to."

 **SMACK!**

Another finger flick struck. Strategically sending shocks up her mechanical spine. Another flick. Shepard grit her teeth feeling herself becoming more aroused with each accursed strike.

"Gggh! When **is** your next appointment for a manicure?" Shepard's jaw locked iron hard, with every strike of the Pirate Queen's finger her pliable butt rippled and slowly reddened, slowly building the pain and pleasure in her body. She knew this was only the warm-up…

 **SMACK!**

"Gggh!" The physics defying digit hammered deep into the earthborn's voluptuous ass reddening the Asian coloured flesh.

 **SMACK!**

Shepard's mouth opened wider and she began taking deeper breaths holding as much composure as she could while naked and bent over an asari's lap.

 **SMACK!**

 _'Bitch seems to be off her game…'_ Shepard sneered in her head.

Accustomed to such beatings, the beautiful mercenary lay limp- naked. Arousal and sweat mixing in with the cooling shower water, locked in Aria's still clothed lap as her master continued to pummel her rear end.

The pirate queen took hold of Shepard's hair looking down at the sparkling Thessian shimmerstone floor. Like everything else in the sex room (or business room 3 as Aria called it) had a function; it allowed Aria to see reflections of herself and in this case Shepard's pain-filled face.

A hand moved away from its ministrations and pressed a haptic console that had sprung to life on one of the throne's armrests. The holoscreen before Shepard changed from security footage to footage of Shepard and Aria quite energetically fucking.

"Huh… right… you filmed that…"

"I was planning to critique you on your disappointing performance… you miscounted the number of times I spanked you with the Varren hide paddle, your fellatio on my strap-on was sloppy and your stamina holding me in the Grip of Athame position was sub-par."

"Well… I did kill like fifty Eclipse assholes that day!"

"I counted forty-six, Shepard. Your observation skills are pitiable."

 **-X-**

 **A great deal of pain and perversion later...**

A punished, agonized Katsu Shepard now stood, legs split, upper body bent over the front of the throne, her face pressed down into the seat where Aria, and later herself had sat. She could smell the aftermath of her own arousal (and possibly something from Aria) in the fabric. She was disturbed to find herself aroused at that prospect.

While the former N7 held her submissive position, her employer found a new tool; an electro flogger, an extreme sex toy developed from a device created by batarians for torture of slaves and other prisoners.

Eyes closed as her face was in contact with the not-dry cushions, Shepard steeled herself as she knew what that device did on even a low setting- Aria knew too, hence her evil smirk.

 **CRACK!**

The flails strands struck first, reddening her backs flesh, then the electric shock delivered by the soft, highly flexible memory metal flashed into her, setting her nerves ablaze with such force that her vision sparked, every muscle locked steel hard in pain. The merciless asari struck again, the strands spreading across her back stabbing lightning into her from multiple points. It burned the breath away from her body, her vision whited out, every cell in her body felt like it was dipped in molten metal and it was all Shepard had not to break. Not to break her submissive position over the black throne. Not to scream in agony. Aria gave her a second to recompose herself after thrashing in pain. Then she whipped Shepard again. And again. And again.

The whipping went on for an eternity it felt like to Katsu, a good ten minutes in reality. But finally Aria stopped, cast aside the electro-whip and turned away from the quivering, traumatized human woman.

After retrieving a bag from one of the rooms metal lockers Aria had imperiously reseated in her throne and once again laid Shepard across her knee.

The beautiful assassin was a mess; her back was a tapestry of welts, deep bruises and light cuts. Her powerful muscles twitched, remembering the bolts of lava hot agony sent through them over and over. Her lungs gulped in bucketful's of air trying to soothe the agonised body they served. Shepard's eyes were slightly reddened by tears and sweat but she still glared at Aria, smiling savagely.

She couldn't speak as it felt like her tongue and mouth had been sandpapered, but she felt victorious that she didn't beg for mercy or scream out loud or break her position bent over that stupid throne.

Worst of all, Katsu's lower regions were wet, showing twisted arousal from the pain of the vicious beating.

Aria removed something from the bag at the thrones side opposite Shepard's vision. She twisted her head to see what the depraved asari had in store for her next...

 **-X-**

 **One hour later...**

The pace had been brutal, unrelenting, merciless. But finally Aria decided to bring the session to a close;

Her skilled, ancient, yet youthful fingers rubbed her pet. Shepard had gone near-crosseyed as she suffered; the pain increasing as the wonderful sensations did, further inflaming her twisted mind as she bit into and gulped around the revoltingly shaped gag in her drooling mouth.

Katsu screamed into that oversized gag as she came. Suffering sadistic and reckless violation, her mind aflame in pain. She screamed loud, hard and long, drowning in pain and ecstasy oblivious to Aria grinning down at her, reaching a peak of pleasure herself at hearing the submissive soul-felt scream.

Shepard numbly blinked, then gasped and swallowed spastic-like as Aria removed her gag.

Laying the barely conscious human in the stained throne's seat, Aria held Shepard's head between her hands, briefly squeezing her reddened cheeks together. Aria stared into Shepard's tear-stained, dazed eyes as her own orbs turned black as space.

"Embrace… whatever I tell you."

Shepard felt the pain of her body, the discomfort of her current position, her mind, the sights delivered by her eyes, her very consciousness slip away as Aria's meld overpowered her not resisting mind…

Shepard blinked and found herself looking over a lake, crystal clear, the hot, shining yellow sun, the smell of wildflowers- some transplanted from Earth's clone banks, some alien native species. Of the world of Elysium.

She turned and saw Illyria, the town she once considered building a life free of violence.

Seeing familiar townspeople, she set off in search of her could-have-been family… her fiancée Daniel, her could-have-been younger sister Helen, father and mother-in-law were waiting for her…

As back on 'The heart of darkness' Aria T'Loak turned away from the naked, injured, entranced Shepard and walked away without looking back.

* * *

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

Aria's a bitch, she's supposed to be a galactic crime boss/warlord, here she acts like it.

In my AU Shepard had a fiancée on Elysium who died in the Skylian Blitz. Shepard at least partially blames the Alliance for it as they knew the attack was coming and didn't warn the civilian population at all or the assigned soldiers until it was too late.


End file.
